Republicans blow up their story in Florida as Democrats get closer

The Republicans went on the offensive Thursday as the presidential race for three Florida offices tightened under the scrutiny of counting votes in Broward County, rich in Democrats.

"Broward's electoral supervisors routinely violating Florida's law requiring timely reporting are not just annoying incompetence," said Sen. Marco Rubio on Twitter, referring to Broward's election supervisor, Brenda Snipes. "This opened the door to the opportunity for lawyers to come here and try to steal a place in the US Senate and Florida Cabinet."

Rubio was referring to the agriculture commissioner's race, where Democrat Nikki Fried had opened Thursday afternoon a tiny 564-vote lead over Republican Matt Caldwell, and the most expensive race in US Senate history between Republican Rick Scott and Democrat Bill Nelson. Scott had an advance of 17,344 votes Thursday afternoon, within the limits of the manual count.

"The latest newsletters from Broward and / or Palm Beach have switched Ag. Comm race to Dem has reduced Scott's leading position in the Senate race by 4K," tweeted Rubio. "Since 3am in the morning, the slow drip of these 2 counties controlled by Dem has passed Scott from 54 to 17K. And they refuse to divulge # of ballots that they left behind. "

17 hours. On Thursday, Snipes said Broward County had finished counting the advance ballots, with only the remaining ballots and provisional ballots. Snipes said the county would finish counting the ballots "soon". Snipes added that the county had accepted 205 of the 600 provisional ballots up to now.

The Palm Beach County election supervisor, Susan Bucher, said her office would finish counting about 3,500 ballots by the end of Friday afternoon.

In his campaign, Scott has described the hiring of electoral lawyer Marc Elias with Nelson as "a looted weapon from Washington, DC, that will attempt to win an election for Nelson that Nelson has already lost."

And Republican Ron DeSantis, speaking to reporters at Hialeah Gardens, said he was "looking forward to serving." DeSantis' race of governor has also fallen in the doorway for an automatic recount with Democrat Andrew Gillum on Thursday, though DeSantis has a bigger cushion than Scott. .

"I am proud to have been elected Tuesday night. It's a great honor, "said DeSantis. "We are working very hard on the transition. We're going to let the lawyers do what they have to do, but that's fine. Looking forward to serving "

Snipes is no stranger to the controversy. In May, a court ruled that she had unlawfully destroyed ballots during a 2016 congressional race and the state had announced the sending of experts to the polls. Elections in Broward County to make sure the laws were followed.

Rubio tweeted that "Democratic lawyers are coming down to Florida … to change the election results". Broward representative Debbie Wasserman Schultz, whose 2016 Democratic primary against Tim Canova was the focus of this year's judgment against Snipes, said Republicans' criticism of the counting process is doing a disservice to voters while the ballots are always counted.

"I spent today helping voters make sure they know how to make sure their vote is counted, without wasting time on politics and on counting down votes", Wasserman Schultz I said. "It's not really surprising, because it's the consistent principle that characterizes how Republicans in this state process the recount process.

Wasserman Schultz says that its only priority is to make sure every vote in Broward County is counted, and that what's wrong with the county's vote counting process can be determined later.

"The moment to determine, you know, if something goes wrong or what problems need to be solved is once the election process is over," Wasserman Schultz I said.

His main concern at this stage is that election supervisors in 44 counties have not publicly disclosed lists of electors who have submitted provisional ballots and that most of these counties have Republican election supervisors.

"Once the process is complete, you will have to settle the issue of how you treat the identity of an elector who has proceeded to a provisional vote." Wasserman Schultz I said. "Voter information is public and that's how each party has a voter file. When you vote on a provisional ballot, it should not be treated differently. "

Elias, Nelson's electoral lawyer, is convinced that during a manual recount, there will be more mistakes that could change the results of Nelson's race. Several election prognosticators put the race in the Republic of Florida Senate from "Likely Republican" to "Lean Republican" two days after polling day, due to the impending vote count.

"When, at the end of the day, all eligible voters will see their votes counted accurately, the basic truth that we will learn is that more voters voted for Sen. Nelson only for Governor Scott, "said Elias.

Editors Alex Harris and Martin Vassolo of the Miami Herald contributed to this report.

Alex Daugherty, @alextdaugherty, 202-383-6049